When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people's gardens
and learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
- Jenny Joseph
I wore a vivid pink polo shirt today. I bought it several years ago but never donned it until this morning. The mood finally struck me, and oh yeah, I hadn't done laundry in a few weeks. The shirt aroused attention and commentary from friends and colleagues because I don't do pink.
The attention was nice, although I had to make more than my usual concerted effort to hold in my stomach because people were checking me out. The commentary was supportive - I think - and usually took the form of "That's quite a color for you!"
I usually do black or blue, sometimes dark green, and occasionally brown. But I don't do pink. That was why my shirt attracted notice today.
Why did I even buy a shirt that made me look a giant Pepto-Bismol tablet? I actually remember the sequence of events. I had seen a television show about Kanye West, who apparently likes pink polo shirts. Not many rap singers wear polo shirts, much less pink ones, but the show commentary said he was comfortable with his masculinity, so he wore such shirts.
By one of those coincidences that makes life so wonderful, the day after I saw the television show, an LL Bean catalog arrived in my mail, and featured was a pink polo shirt. So I ordered it. Maybe I wanted to be comfortable with my masculinity. But as stated, I never wore it until today. However, I don't think reticence about my masculinity had much to do with my delay in wearing the shirt. As the Kinks once sang, "I know what I am, and I'm glad I'm a man" ... a man who wears black and blue, green and brown.
Shame on me! I had a lot of fun today, and given that I had already bought the shirt, it cost me nothing to have so much fun.
So what's in your closet that you don't wear? Put it on, walk among your friends, and have some fun. The feedback I got was positive, but even if you get negative feedback, accept it in the spirit of fun. Hideous is okay if you choose it.
There's a more general point here about the good life. We all wear clothes, assuming we are not members of a nudist colony. As much as anything else about us, our clothes convey to others how we want to be regarded. Soldiers and police are not the only ones who wear uniforms, so I urge you to consider your own uniform. Mine is a black and blue, green and brown one, rather somber and sober, conveying a "don't notice me" message.
What's wrong with conveying another image - one that says "I like to have fun, and I don't take myself all that seriously?"
What's in your closet?
